


The Barber-Surgeon of Ard Skellig

by TheCraftyWriter



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-29
Updated: 2017-10-18
Packaged: 2018-09-13 06:46:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 12,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9111187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheCraftyWriter/pseuds/TheCraftyWriter
Summary: "[This ring] is actually mine, I received it from a dear old friend. You might call him a humanist."Regis, young and determined to overcome his blood addiction, finds a mentor in an enigmatic vampire known as The Humanist.  Taking place several centuries before the Witcher books and games.





	1. The Scourge of Dillingen

From the personal journal of Ciaran Foiles O’Cionnaith  
Year 1002

                It was a mistake to come to Dillingen. Not a mistake in the traditional sense, for I completed my business in the town with no setbacks, but a mistake in an abstract sense. I witnessed something…disconcerting, and even though I write this having returned to Ark Skellig, it unsettles me still.  
                The singular fort in Dillengen, and the two others that lie westerly to it have fed the Yaruga’s currents with blood. The wars of the last centuries were not kind to Brugge. Yet in all there is some silver lining. The bloodmoss that grows on the Yaruga’s banks in these areas has evolved into a powerful detoxicant, or so my druidic acquaintances recently informed me.  
                I came to Dillingen to harvest some of that moss, to test the druids’ claims [Note: Initial tests seem promising. Observations recorded in clinical journal XXV]. Having completed my objective, I decided to postpone my departure until the following night. The moon would be new then, and the stars, my points of navigation while traveling over the sea, brighter.  
                I find I must revise my earlier statement. My mistake was not in coming to Dillingen, but in staying too long.  
                I spent the night before I was due to leave relaxing in my room at the town’s ample in. In light of the waning moon, I observed the town square, the shutters of my window open to let in the dry night air. I had set a pot of tea to boil over the room’s small fire.  
                As I watched the dark town, I saw one brave soul, a young girl, venture into the darkness, hurrying toward the well at the square’s center.  
                Everything from that moment happened quickly. An inky shape detached itself from the night sky and dove at the girl. She screamed. The kettle shrieked. I turned my head away for but a moment.  
                When my gaze snapped back to the window, the girl was alone, and the roof of the well was in destroyed. The child continued to shout; her cries lit candles in neighboring houses and summoned the townsfolk to the square.  
                Yet beneath this din, I heard other sounds, of equal distress: hissing, the swish of water, and something like knives against a whetstone. When these faded to silence, I felt a throbbing dread begin in my skull. I hurried downstairs.  
                The innkeeper was adamant that I stay indoors.  
                “You don’t understand, Master Surgeon,” she pleaded, blocking the inn door with her thin frame, “it’s monsters out there.”  
                “I heard a child shouting,” I said. “She may be hurt.”  
                The woman nodded sadly, “It always takes the little ones, seems like.”  
                “This monster, do you know what it might be?” I called to mind the glimpse I’d had of the shadow. Maybe I was mistaken. Perhaps it wasn’t a -   
                “Vampire, so the alderman says. It attacks nearly every week now. Damn scourge of this town,” she spat superstitiously at the threshold.  
                There was a ferocious pounding on the inn door, and a male voice shouting. The innkeeper opened the door a crack, which the man, corpulent and with the bearing of an alderman, took as his invitation to barge in. He pointed at me.  
                “You the healer from Skellige?”  
                “I am he,” I answered. Behind the alderman stood the open door with a view of the crowd that was gathering in the square, torches blazing. I strained to hear any hiss or _shnick_ of claw against stone, but heard nothing.  
                “Come with me,” commanded the alderman.

                I felt the usual self-consciousness as he led me through the crowd. Though I knew it was irrational, I feared that the frightened and angry humans would see through me. I had but make one misstep and they would realize that I was akin to the monster that terrified their village and exsanguinated their children. After almost a millennium, that feeling still arises whenever I leave home and walk among unfamiliar people.  
                The girl who had miraculously escaped death sat in the dirt several yards from the well and sobbed. Three women, her mother among them, knelt near her. It was to this little group that the alderman introduced me.   
                Fortunately, the girl bore only a few lacerations from the fragments of the demolished roof. Frightened of the vampire, she had thrown her arms in front of her face at the last second. Her terror had saved her eyes. As I balmed and bandaged her wound’s I listened for any noise from the well. I also tried to convince myself, despite having sensed nothing of the sort, that my kin had simply turned into mist and escaped.  
                “Oi! Petyr! Jacek!,” someone shouted. “We got it. Think it’s dead.”  
                The girl taken care of, I stood, turned around, and saw what had become of my kin.  
                With rope and hooks, they had pulled him from the well. He lay at the stone base, a board from the well’s roof through his abdomen. He seemed unconscious.

                I find it difficult to write about what transpired from that point on, partly because of my own conflicted thoughts. To be frank, I’ve lived as a humanist for so vast a time that I can empathize with them easily. Thus revulsion rose within me when I beheld my kin, the Scourge of Dillingen. His careless slaughter of humans, whether for sadistic pleasure or to satiate thirst, disgusted me, though I knew myself capable of such destruction. At the same time, I felt a compassion towards him that the humans around me would find appalling. I willed, as if my own will would make any difference for him to awaken and flee. To my great concern, he appeared unable to do either. The townsfolk encircled him. There was some debate among the men as regards the best way to kill a vampire, a pointless exercise, but one I hoped would buy my kin time to melt into the night air as mist.  
                I also began to fear that if he awoke enraged, the town would pay the price, and I, caught between the two, would be helpless to stop the slaughter without exposing myself or fighting my own kind.  
                No. That’s not entirely true. It doesn’t matter what I write; I know that I would have killed him to save these humans. I’m already anathema.   
                Ultimately, I was not put into such a position that night. A young man, impatient with the crowd’s inaction, drew his scythe above his head and brought the powerful stroke down over the vampire’s neck, severing the head.  
                My kin’s surprise and pain seared my own thoughts like a red hot poker, and I bit my tongue to keep from crying out. He had returned to consciousness at that very moment, only to receive the scythe’s blow. And I had foolishly been reaching out towards him with my mind. I withdrew it, but that hardly mattered. He had gone silent.

                After that, I had no desire to continue watching how the people of Dillingen punished their attacker. I slipped back to my room and latched my shutters. But I could still hear them. I heard them sharpen stakes and bless jars of holy water. I heard them debate what to do with the body and eventually cart the remains away. And finally, in the few hours before dawn, the townsfolk retired to sleep and dreamt of nights without terror.

                There is one last aspect of this incident that I feel is worth mentioning, if only because it provides some background information to the events I witnessed that night, and thus makes them even harder to forget.  
                The morning after the incident, I could not bear to stay in town. I chose to spend the day wandering the woods, alone with my thoughts, and then depart at moonrise. The day was bright and chill; Autumn would arrive soon. As I walked beneath yellowing trees a few kilometers away from town, I heard a sudden cacophony of bird calls. Glancing toward the noise, I saw her: a slim figure clad in a grey cloak, flitting through the trees as quickly as the birds which heralded her presence. A bruxa.  
                Curious, I followed her, unconcerned with concealing my presence. I am sure she was aware of me, but she let me follow anyway.  
                She led me to a part of the forest where trees grew so thick together, they blotted out the sky. At the base of one tree was a mound of dirt and stones which I recognized as a freshly dug and covered grave. All in the dirt and hanging from the branches above were talismans to ward off evil and copious amounts of garlic bulbs.   
                The bruxa threw back her hood and turned to me, her auburn hair falling over her shoulder.   
                “I do not know you,” she declared.  
                “No,” I said, “I expect you wouldn’t. I am only in Brugge for business, my home lies across the sea. Please call me Ciaran.”  
                “Tell me why you followed me.”  
                In answer, I looked past her to the new grave.  
                She knelt by the mound and began to pick off the garlic bulbs littering it, flinging them into the bushes.  
                “My name is Lilith.”  
                “I was in town last night, Lilith. I saw what happened.”  
                Lilith sighed and began to remove the talismans as she had the bulbs. Silence grew between us. Even the birds were quiet.  
                “It was bound to happen sooner or later,” she said at last. “Emiel was reckless; he drank too much. You might say he got what he deserved,” She tried to sound cold but her voice broke.  
                “I’m sorry. Was he your mate?” I asked and instantly regretted it. She bared her fangs and scoffed but then grew serious.   
                “Yes. No. Well, we could have been. I loved him. He loved me too, I think. But he loved drunken oblivion much more than me, maybe more than anything else. Who knows? I felt bad when I ended it.”  
                Having cleared the grave of its rustic adornments, Lilith stood and replaced her hood.  
                “Anyway,” she said, “I’ve only come to say my farewell.”  
                “It would be wise to leave this area. Your . . . friend’s actions have endangered you, exposed you.”   
                “I know. I was planning to leave the countryside anyway, see the cities: Kovir, Novigrad, maybe Vizima. Now, could you leave me? There are words I must say, and I would prefer privacy.”  
                I nodded, “Of course. Thank you, Lilith.”    
                “For what?”  
                “For being open with me. Farewell.”  
                “Farewell.”  
                I left her and was left alone with my thoughts.  
                Fifty to sixty years. I estimate fifty to sixty years for him to regenerate. He’s young. His powers have not yet reached their full potential. I wonder if he will remain in Brugge once recovered or choose some other haunt.   
                Lilith was right; his punishment was just. The human-like hatred I felt for him had dissipated. For a moment, I considered – it would not take very much blood . . . But no. No.  All creatures must reap what they sow, immortals included. Perhaps immortals most of all.


	2. The Blood of the Dead: Part 1

**Year 1010**

          Emiel awoke in darkness, the total emptiness of complete sensory deprivation. He saw only with his mind’s eye as his body knit itself back together within the earth. There was no use in connecting the mind to a still-healing body.

            And in this form of consciousness, he was unaware of the passage of time; there was only himself and the unending present. That couldn’t be right.

            What had happened to him? He tried to recall. Nothing else seemed to exist before this moment, this awakening. Maybe this was, and always had been, his existence. It wasn’t unpleasant, he realized. Certainly, a crucial portion of time, the past, was missing, but wasn’t that for the best? The word itself seemed dark and painful. It had no place in the now. And what use was the future? That word implied change, and he wished nothing about the strange peace he felt to change.

**Year 1015**

           Something lurked in the periphery of his mind, exuding potential energy. Despite his attempts at ignorance, it inched closer, trying to make itself known. In his mind’s ear, he heard its plaintive cries, like a child beseeching a parent to listen.  
            “No, please. Let me be in peace a while longer,” whispered his mind’s voice.  
            Beneath the earth, a million neurons connected, restoring time and memory with the sharpness of a scythe’s blade.

**Year 1034**

            In much the same way as he had previously only been aware of the present, Emiel was now submerged in the past. And with his past all around him, he could see how it had culminated into one horrible decision that left him functionally dead. But where had it begun? It would be easy to say everything had started the first time he’d taken a drink. The details eluded him, but he remembered the girl, the nudges from a friend, and the confidence boost the blood gave him. In all honesty though, it had probably begun earlier. At some point, a desire had risen in him, stronger than any lust. He wanted to be accepted, to be liked, to not be the odd, awkward one out. The blood was a tool to achieve that end.  
            It was only a tool, until it became a crutch.  
            The person that he saw in his memories from that point on looked like him, spoke like him, but was merely a slave, in service to a feeling of confident invincibility. Little by little, the blood had mastered him, sucked away all dignity and self-control, and left behind a wraith that was barely tolerated by the ones it had so wanted to impress.  
            He had chosen that path, held out his wrists to be shackled.  
            Anger boiled in his mind. Not one of his so-called friends had bothered to revive him. He didn’t blame them. Whoever spared blood to revive him would irrevocably link the two of them as brethren. And what person in their right mind would take on that shame, that stain, for all eternity?  
            It was better this way. Alone, he would never be a burden to anyone. He would never be the cause for embarrassment or disgrace. Without the distraction of others, he would win back what his foolish past self had given up: control, freedom, dignity.

            As if in response to Emiel’s declaration, the mind-body connection linked up, and he screamed as an overload of sensory information drove away all other thought.

**Year 1052**

            The soil and stones of the grave mound fell away as Emiel dug himself out the shallow grave he had spent fifty years in. He stretched and rolled his shoulders, neck, and wrists. As expected, his body was sore, the joints stiff, the muscles tight.  Mercifully, it was dawn. He knew that his eyes, having spent so long unseeing, would have ached at any strong light.  
            He brushed the dirt from his body and winced as he touched tender, new skin. This was the first time he’d undergone a major regeneration. Someone had told him once what he might expect, but their words had not done the true experience justice. The feeling of mind and body connecting still lingered painfully.  
            He knew  whereabouts he had ended up. The town near the mouth of the big river, the .... He strained to remember. The name was there in his mind, but stuck in a post-regeneration cerebral mire.   
            "Yaruga," he finally said, and realized that his voice was just as sore as the rest of him.  
            The name of the nearby town had short, little vowels, he remembered, but, unlike the Yaruga which even vampires used as a landmark, the town's name was unimportant. What was important, he decided, was where he would go from here.  
            Emiel turned toward the East, where golden light streamed. The sun was rising. In that direction, bathed in gold, were places he knew too well, places on which he had left a wide, bloody mark. Those marks were reaching for him now, sure as the tendrils of the dawn reached for him.  
            He turned his back on the sunrise and faced the West. The sky was darker there, and clouds gathered on the far horizon where the sea lay, where the unknown lay. There was only one way to go. He took flight.  
            Soaring through the air restored some of his calm and confidence. He recalled times when he had free fallen from cliffs, only to pull up laughing before he hit their rocky bottoms. Everything would be alright.  
            The day had long since caught up with him and lit up the vast sea which stretched out in all directions. He called to mind maps he had seen of this world. There were supposed to be islands in the West, which the small Amerun clan of vampires called home. The humans that lived there had the sea in their blood and were particularly hardy against cold and storm, but they were fewer in number than on the continent where the wilderness was quickly being crowded out by large cities and towns. On the islands, it would be easier to avoid both humans and vampires.  
            He had been flying for a few hours when pain suddenly flamed through his back. He had finished regenerating, surely, so what was this? Emiel swallowed his fear and tried to rationalize. He must have strained a muscle somehow; it would go away. Sure enough, the pain passed after a few minutes.  
            As he flew on, he spotted large ships on the waves, probably traveling between the islands and the continent. Though he was sure that he was flying too fast and high to be seen well, he ascended above a thin layer of cloud. He briefly wondered how high he could go, but logic cautioned that this was not the best time. He had missed logic. It was rarely present when he, surrounded by peers and a haze of blood intoxication, accepted dares of the most violent and debauched kind. Now, his mind was clear, and he had already vowed never to let it become clouded again.  
            Another hour passed, filled with coasting on favorable winds. He had calmed significantly since leaving the continent, and this was, perhaps, why it took him some time to notice that the air had grown still and heavy. He looked at the sea; it was darker than before.  
            As he wondered whether these signs meant rain, the pain returned. This time, it spread down his back and into his wings. It was hot and pulsing and difficult to ignore. He tried anyway. There was worse pain than this. He had heard stories of unbearable pain, cautionary tales of vampires slaughtered by witchers and mages, of the kinds of torture that could be given as punishment by an Unseen. This pain was nothing.  
            Such mental fortitude unfortunately meant little to his body.  
            And so, a little ways off the coast of Ard Skellig, Emiel’s wings crumpled. He spun in the air for a moment and then plummeted, his body, unbidden, abandoning its winged form altogether.  
            From that height, the water may as well have been stone. The impact knocked what little breath he had from his lungs. He gasped and inhaled only brine. Water closed over him, sealing him beneath the waves.  
            Beneath several meters of frigid Skellige sea, Emiel tried to discern which way was up. He looked about frantically, salt stinging his eyes. There! One direction appeared lighter than the others. After what felt like an eternity, he surfaced. Emiel looked around him, searching for shore or at the very least a collection of rocks to cling to. His swimming abilities were minimal and only lasted for short distances. He had taken stock of himself and determined that he would be unable to get airborne again for a while. Fortunately, he saw what looked to be treetops rising above the horizon.

            The shore he finally washed up on was covered in pebbles and sloped sharply up a rocky face to meet a dense grove of trees. In the rock face was an opening tall enough to be walked through, though only a meter wide.  
            Emiel slowly stood up; the pebbles that had pressed into his skin clinked to the ground. His legs shook, his muscles burned from the swim, and he was dizzy; but he managed to take a few steps forward. And then a few more. And more after that, until he was just inside the cave. Emiel leaned against the rock and looked around. The slick stone of the floor and walls was damp and carpeted in moss. The cave itself was also larger and deeper than it appeared from the outside; the light could not penetrate the very back.  
            There were some broken crates and chests littered about, as if the place had once been used as storage. In one corner, a few yards from him, lay a grey heap. Curious, Emiel limped over to it and discovered a long-since dead human, or part of one anyway. Its head and right arm had been torn off, but the rest had been discarded into the corner. Not even at his most inebriated would he drink from something this rancid. As he stared at the corpse, Emiel realized that he was cold. This was surprising. His body never paid external temperatures any mind. For a moment, the fear he had felt while falling into the sea reared its head.  
            With no hesitation, he stripped the corpse and pulled on its bloodstained trousers and shirt. He was still cold.  
            Suddenly, a grating screech rang through the cave. Emiel spun around and stared deeply into the darkness at the back of the cave. He noticed, close to where the darkness began, piles of yellow-white rocks in various shapes and sizes. Bones.  
            Three shapes slunk from the darkness. They looked like harpies, with great feathered wings and taut skin of a sickly purple-brown color, but seemed larger than the ones Emiel was familiar with. This cave must be their nest. They shrieked at him and advanced cautiously. He held his ground. Surely, they, like most other creatures he’d encountered before, wouldn’t dare attack an apex predator. That was basic survival instinct: never start you cannot win.  
            They leapt at him. As shock paralyzed him, Emiel realized that the harpies were not being foolish; they _were_ attacking prey weaker than themselves. He was so weak that they didn’t deem him a threat.  
            A talon raked across the side of his face and brought Emiel back to the moment. He may not have been able to turn to mist or to his winged form, and he may have been fatigued, but he still had claws.  
            His first strike slit open the abdomen of one harpy. It fell, viscera spilling onto the moss. It would have been a more impressive blow if Emiel’s legs hadn’t given out at the last second. He collapsed next to his victim. The remaining two harpies stopped in confusion, unsure if they should run from or finish off their opponent.  
            Emiel grit his teeth and willed himself to stand. He hadn’t spent fifty years regenerating just to be defeated by these base creatures. He bared his fangs and hissed.  
            One harpy ignored this warning and charged. Emiel dodged clumsily, and the harpy’s talons grazed his arm. He may be determined to win, but sheer willpower could only conjure so much stamina. They traded blows; he shredded its wing, and it struck his back.  
            Unable to fly away, the wounded harpy beseeched its friend for help. In a blur of adrenaline that surprised even himself, Emiel never gave it the chance. He ripped open the creature’s thigh. Warm blood sprayed over him, turning his vision red. The remaining harpy fled, and the injured one crumpled in a heap.  
            Still riding a wave of adrenaline, Emiel staggered out onto the beach. He waded into the water and washed the harpy’s blood, and his own, away. His injuries were healing, but slower than he would have expected. Behind him, he heard a tiny, shuddering gasp. The harpy he’d wounded had died.  
            At the sound of that last death throe, all the exhaustion that Emiel had tried to keep at bay washed over him. He stumbled back into the cave and lay down a few yards from the entrance. Sleep. He needed to sleep, to restore some energy. He would be alright in a few hours. When unconsciousness beckoned, Emiel succumbed without a fight.

           


	3. The Blood of the Dead: Part 2

            The dawn broke, as it always did, over the evil and good, over humans and elder races, and over monsters. Its tendrils illuminated lovers still clasped in embrace and children in their cots.   
            Some rays of light flashed off the damp stone of a shore cave in Ard Skellig. They even pierced the darkness at the cavern’s back where Emiel sat against the stone, clad in a dead man’s clothes, his knees pulled up to his chest, and his head resting on them. He had chased sleep for hours, but failed.  
            He felt perpetually on the verge of vomiting, though he didn’t know if this was due to the pain writing around his abdomen, or the way the cave seemed to be swaying back and forth. Sometimes, when he was on the edge of sleep, he felt a warm body press against his and opened his eyes to see an apparition of Lily caressing him. He moaned and reached for her, but she vanished as quickly as she’d appeared.   
            Other hallucinations were far less comforting. He saw and felt the scythe’s blow again and again, and the fall into the sea, but this time he sank endlessly into the depths. The worst was a ring of dark figures closing in around him, hands reaching, white eyes flashing. They wanted to pull him into the darkness at the back of cave where a cage waited.  
            “No! I’m not like him,” Emiel cried out. “Please! I was never that bad, just foolish.”  
            He leapt to his feet, which dispersed the vision, but also caused him such vertigo, that he sank back to the floor.   
            Either something had gone wrong with his regeneration, or this was all the result of not drinking blood. Maybe his body had become so dependent on it that going without was too much to bear. Then he saw again the vision of the cage in the dark and thought, as quietly as it was possible to think: maybe I’m going mad.  
            A wind whipped up outside and came groaning through the cave entrance.   
            Maybe I’m going insane.  
            The gust pulled at Emiel’s clothes and hair and sent an impossible chill through him. He tried to push it away.  
            Was he prepared to live an entire existence crouched in a cave, lost in pain and fantasy? And what if it only got worse?  
            Everything had seemed easy and bright when he’d left the continent. Of course he knew it would be difficult to simply walk away, but he had counted on his determination to sustain him. And now that the moment of perseverance and courage had arrived, he was too scared to do anything but cower in fear of pain and of failure.  
            Emiel tried to recall the feeling of invincibility that being drunk gave him. Even a modicum of that confidence would be enough. It was obvious that he couldn’t stay here. As soon as his symptoms subsided to a manageable level, he needed to leave, find food and water, then wait out the pain if there was an end to it. He didn’t want to think much beyond that. In one of his hallucinations, he had imagined the future. It was very like the present, but he was much older and still wandering, purposeless and alone.

            It was deep into the night by the time Emiel felt well enough to try standing. He clutched the wet stone of the cave wall for support, but stood nonetheless. His steps forward were shaky, but sure. He did not know under whose power he was moving, but it couldn’t have been his own. It could be Fear’s. Fear was strong enough to do what Confidence and Belief couldn’t, and the darkness at the back of the cave scared him.  
            The moment he emerged onto the shore, Emiel realized how dulled his senses had become. It was if the world had suddenly grown smaller and quieter. The full moon was strong and shone unhindered by clouds, but Emiel found he could not see as far off as he should be able to. He walked a little ways down the beach until the rock face the cave was set into sloped down to meet the shore and he could scramble into the dense cluster of trees.  
             Surely there was an abundance of nocturnal creatures in this forest, but Emiel heard only a few. What he found most disconcerting, however, was his diminished sense of smell. Without it, he may as well have been blind.  
  
             It was slow going. Though the pain in his body had diminished to a persistent ache, and the vertigo had reduced to dizziness, Emiel got out of breath easily. He limped between tree trunks and used them to keep his balance. His face burned with effort and shame. It was pitiful. He could barely walk a straight line, and his pace might as well have been a crawl.  
            The air was chill. Some trees were almost bare of leaves. Winter was approaching. The cold should not have affected him, but Emiel shivered. The full moon’s glint on the water put him in mind of a roaring bonfire which he had once seen humans make on a feast day. With a croaking, rueful chuckle, he suspected himself to be the first vampire to ever yearn for the warmth of a fire.  
            Instead of a blaze, the first comfort Emiel found, after an hour of walking, was a small stream that rushed over rocks on its way to the sea. He drank slowly and deeply. The water was cold and tasted slightly of iron, which helped to satiate his thirst for the time being. Since he had nothing with which to carry the water, Emiel decided to follow the stream.  
            Suddenly, a great cracking noise rang out across the forest. Emiel looked toward the sound, and wished he could turn to mist. This wood felt more primal than any on the continent. There could be any number of ancient monstrosities lurking amid the dense foliage. Humans and wild beasts were nothing to be afraid of, but a leshen, fiend, werewolf … he didn’t want to tangle with those, and certainly not in this pathetic state.   
            The sound rang out again, reverberating between the trees. And then again, maybe twenty seconds later. And again. Too regular to be a beast. Curiosity propelled him forward. Keeping the stream in sight, Emiel waded through the moonlit darkness.  
            A hundred meters more and there it was: a large house nestled into the forest as if it had grown there. Some ways away lay a substantial pile of wood, and next to that pile, wielding an axe, was a man.   
            Emiel tensed. Humans usually preferred the daylight, but perhaps the approaching winter made them do the unexpected. Regardless, he didn’t trust himself to get any closer. His heart was already pounding, heat rising to his face. He turned to go.  
            The thought of food stayed his steps. There would certainly be some in the house, and he could probably get it without getting any nearer to the wood pile. Of course, it would be easier to kill the human, but they were so fragile; they shattered like glass against stone and spilled blood everywhere. A risk not worth taking.   
            Emiel gave the house a wide berth and circled around behind it until the man was out of sight. Then, he skirted the side and found an unlatched door. He pushed it open and slipped inside.   
            Moonlight streamed in through the windows, so, despite his weakened night vision, Emiel discerned the house’s layout. The main room he stood in was open, but closed doors presumably led to other parts of the house, and, in the far corner, a flight of stairs coursed upward.   
            There was a great stone pillar against one wall, a hearth, and a table with chairs. He headed in that direction and started to open cabinets and sift through the contents of shelves. All he found were bottles and jars filled with strange powders and liquids with such song smells that, were his senses up to par, would be overpowering. Any space not covered by glassware was taken up by leather bound books. There was no food here.  
            As he turned to explore other parts of the house, a glint of metal caught his eye. On the bottom shelf of a corner bookcase, pressed between other large but unimpressive volumes, was a book with an intricately gilded spine.   
            Another axe stroke sounded from outside. The pile of logs the man still needed to chop had looked large. Emiel knelt down and pulled out the book. The cover was as intricate as the spine, though it had no title.  
            It wasn’t until he got several paragraphs in that Emiel realized he was reading vampiric script. He blinked and turned the page. There was more of it. He flipped through the book. His native language covered every page. The book seemed to be a survey of the islands across the sea. Emiel grabbed another book. This one was written in the human language of the continent. He tried to piece together the words. Something about water…plants…heat…  
            “Greetings,” said a kind voice.   
            Emiel spun around, claws extended, instinct overcoming common sense. He lashed out and, quicker than his dulled senses could track, found himself pinned against the shelving.   
            The person who had greeted him, whose hand was now pressed against his chest, was the man who had been chopping wood. This stranger smiled, revealing fangs.  
            With a spasm of fear, Emiel realized that he had made a fatal error. The aura of authority that had washed over him the moment the stranger touched him, a strange new feeling of insignificance, and a desire to bow his head. This had to be an Elder. He’d attacked an Elder.   
            The other vampire seemed to be expending little effort to keep Emiel pinned against the bookshelf. He had, to Emiel’s mind, strange features: eyes like emerald, for one thing and red hair like an alp’s but much darker and tied back.   
            This strangeness, however, did nothing to make him less intimidating. When he finally spoke again, his voice was quiet, yet it had presence; it commanded attention and respect.  
            “Were you truly trying to kill me? If so, I suppose I should be honored that the Elders of the continent have not forgotten me.”  
            “No, no! I was – you startled me. I thought,” how embarrassing to admit it, “I thought you were a human.”  
            At this, the emerald-eyed vampire laughed suddenly and heartily. Emiel flinched.   
            “Thought I was human? I think I’ll take that as a compliment.”  
            He could kill me, Emiel thought, easily and quickly. I don’t think I would even fight; pain for a moment and then oblivion.   
            “Stop!” he shouted, more to drive his own thoughts away than persuade his captor. “I’m not worth killing.”  
            The emerald-eyed vampire drew back the hand pinning Emiel to the bookcase and looked him over. An emotion somewhere between pity and regret crossed his face.  
            “Who are you?”  
            “I’m Gharasham, from the continent. My name-”  
            Suddenly, the pain from the cave returned with a vengeance, sparking across Emiel’s body, leaping from muscle to muscle. He cried out and felt hands catching him before he collapsed. The next thing he knew, he was being helped into a chair by the hearth.  The emerald-eyed vampire lit a fire, which blazed up brightly in a flash of soothing heat. Emiel grimaced at the flames and waited for this wave of pain to pass.  
            A few minutes later, a mug was pressed into his hands.  
            “It tastes terrible, but it should work.” The voice still had its presence and authority, but it was softer now, not so frightening. It was the voice that had greeted him.  
            The yellow liquid in the mug trembled as Emiel’s hands shook.  
            “It’s for pain,” the other vampire said, sitting in a chair across from Emiel.  
            “You – you’re the Elder of this island.”  
            “No. I’m not. I have no authority among our kind. You know, I wasn’t going to fight you; I was taking precautions. You’re the first of us I’ve met in a long time, and when you attacked me, I assumed… Ah, it doesn’t matter. My name in Ard Skellig is Ciaran. Ciaran O’Cionnaith.”  
            It was no vampiric name Emiel had ever heard. He met Ciaran’s green eyes. They watched him concernedly, but what did they see?   
            Before he could think himself out of doing so, Emiel drained the mug of yellow liquid. It tasted wretched, strangely sweet and rancid at the same time. He coughed. Ciaran took the empty mug from him.  
            “Unless the Gharasham have left the continent, you’re far from home.  Listen, I didn’t catch your name before. It doesn’t have to be your real one.”  
            “Emiel Regis Rohellec Terzieff-Godefroy.”  
            “Would you tell me how you came to be rummaging around my house and, what’s more, mistake me for human? You didn’t offend me; I’m just curious.”  
            Emiel told his story, leaving out what circumstances that led to his regeneration in the first place. As he spoke, the medicine took effect and dulled the edges of his pain. He could think clearly.  
            Ciaran listened intently. At one point, he got up and returned with a chunk of brown bread, a handful of white roots, and a few strips of dried meat which Emiel gratefully devoured.  
            “That’s all I have in terms of food at the moment. I should really go to town soon. Anyway, you decided, moments after regenerating, to cross the sea? Daring, but rash.”  
             “I needed to leave that place quickly,” Emiel said.  
            “And you actually made it! I’m impressed. Oh! Those were erynias that attacked you. This region’s breed of harpy.”  
            When the tale was over, Emiel lapsed into silence and stared at the fire. He’d tried not to make himself sound too pathetic in his retelling, but it was hard to salvage a story that ended with a higher vampire, senses weakened, mistaking another of his kind for a human.  
            When Ciaran spoke though, his tone was not judgmental. “You strained yourself. Flying a great distance, fighting… It may not seem like it, but it’s a good thing your body gave out when it did. Still, you lasted a long time. Your will is strong.”  
            Emiel had a vision of himself reclining against a stone casket, lost in a high. A human lay against his chest, the last of her blood drying around the puncture wound on her neck. No, his will was anything but strong.  
            “I have one question,” Ciaran continued. “You said you woke up near a town on the Yaruga. Do you remember the name by any chance?”  
            “Why? It’s not important.”  
            “Humor me.”  
            “I don’t know. It was a longer name. I think it started with a hard sound, then many short sounds.”  
            “Dillingen,” Ciaran said, and the word fell heavy between them. An arrow of ice shot up Emiel’s spine.  
            “Yes.”  
            “Excuse me.” Ciaran almost leapt out of the chair and disappeared up the stairs at the back of the house.  
            Emiel waited, fear rising though he couldn’t say why. News of his idiotic demise couldn’t have crossed the sea to be heard by a vampire of another tribe. Maybe the town meant something to Ciaran, something that had nothing to do with Emiel. At least, he hoped that was the case.  
            Ciaran returned with a leather notebook and a stack of folded clothes. He put the clothes down on the arm of the chair and flipped through the book.  When he found the page he was looking for, he skimmed it quickly, glanced at Emiel, then back at the book.  
            “May I ask what caused your regeneration?”  
            Emiel shifted in his chair and rolled a bread crumb between his fingers. Shame proved stronger than fear.  
            “The humans,” he said, “hired a witcher.”  
            Ciaran let the silence linger for a minute. Emiel tried to gauge if he had bought the lie, but his face betrayed only that he was deep in thought. He closed the book.  
            “You’re welcome to stay here until your body and mind have healed.”  
            It was not at all what Emiel had been expecting. Beside him was a roaring fire; on his lap were bread crumbs. It was impossible how drastically his circumstances had changed in less than twenty-four hours. This vampire with the strange name and an Elder’s bearing was extending a kindness that Emiel doubted his former friends would have offered.  
            While Emiel thought, Ciaran held out the stack of clothes.  
            “The medicine I gave you is powerful, but short-lasting. If you would like to bathe before it wears off, I would do so. Behind that door are the stairs down. Then take the door on the left.”  
            “Thank you.”  
            “While you’re down there, you might want to think about this: If I’m to help you, I need to know the full extent of your ailments, as well as who you are.”  
            “I’ve told you my name, my tribe. What else do you want?”  
            “None of that matters. Who are you?”  
            Emiel stared, opened his mouth, and closed it again. Then he went down the stairs, closing the door behind him.

            The stairs led down to a fairly large basement. As Ciaran had said, the door on the left led to a room insulated with stones. It had no windows but was furnished with a large fireplace, a stool, and some clothing hooks on the walls. In the center of the room lay a circular depression filled with water.  
            Emiel set the clothes Ciaran had given him on the stool and pulled off his old ones, realizing as he did so that they were in a deplorable state, to put it mildly. The fabric was caked in mud and the blood of three different species: that of the dead human they’d belonged to, the erynias’, and his own. This was to say nothing of the tears or the smell. With no hesitation, he balled up the destroyed outfit and flung it into the fire.  
            The water was warm and cloudy from minerals; steam danced above it. Emiel slipped under the surface and stayed under for a few minutes, thinking.   
            He had no more plans, no more brilliant ideas. His original scheme, complete isolation, would surely bring madness. Still, what alternative was there? He couldn’t return to a pack yet, the temptation to … indulge would be too great. Living among humans was also out of the question; they were too base to offer any significant companionship, let alone intelligent conversation, and the temptation would be even worse.  
            Emiel surfaced and set about working the mats out of his hair. The atmosphere in the room had grown heavy. The air’s warmth pressed in on him, and a strong herbal scent filled his nose. It was hard to think of anything else but the heat and that strangely comforting smell. He started to doze.  
            No! He dug his fingernails into his scalp. Sleep brought only those awful visions, but it grew more difficult by the hour to resist its call.  
            On the ledge of the bath was a white bar of soap and cloth, the latter of which he lathered and worked roughly over his body to drive off the temptation of sleep.  
            Ciaran’s last question hovered in his mind, and, as he usually did when he hadn’t dazzled in a conversation, Emiel tried to think of what he should have said.  
            “None of that matters. Who are you?”  
            Why was that such a difficult question to answer? Of course he knew who he was, he – well it was obvious that he was – surely, he -  
            “I don’t know.” The words rung out from a small corner of his mind: a corner that had gathered up its courage and said what the rest of the mind was thinking but too scared to admit. And it was the truth.   
            Somewhere along the way, after years of living under the haze of intoxication, he had lost himself. It had been impossible to think of anything else, to be anything else when his sole raison d’être revolved around getting drunk, enjoying being drunk, and, in his sober moments, anticipating getting drunk again. He had become one with his addiction, given up everything – his relationships, his personality, his mind – to serve it.  
            That was why he’d resolved, as he lay buried and waiting for regeneration to take its toll, that he would be, finally, free no matter the struggle. He would not let fear and shame rob him of that freedom.

            Ciaran had cleaned up the mud tracked in by his unexpected guest. Now, he sat by the hearth, writing in a pocket-sized notebook, a mug of tea balanced precariously on the arm of his chair. The chair across from him, where Emiel had sat before, was occupied by a brown, long-haired cat.  
            He shut the book and looked up as Emiel entered. Instead of a dead man’s clothes, the young vampire now wore a light green tunic over a long-sleeved, cream undershirt, and brown trousers. Everything was oversized, but it gave him a far sight more dignity. Emiel’s damp hair left watermarks where it brushed his shoulders.   
            “I thought you drowned,” Ciaran grinned wryly. “You took your time.”  
            “Forgive me; I was thinking.”  
            Ciaran frowned. “Don’t look so abashed. There’s nothing to forgive. I love a long bath, if you couldn’t tell.”  
            “You certainly have an elaborate set-up,” Emiel gave the barest hint of a smile, which Ciaran returned widely.  
            “Sit down. Go on, move the cat.”  
            The cat, as Emiel reached down to pick her up, hissed and leapt off the chair.   
            “She’s really a nice animal,” Ciaran said, “just sore that you’ve taken her chair. She’ll get over it. Anyway, what were you thinking about?”  
            Emiel stared into the hearth. A log in the center of the fire finally burnt into halves and threw up sparks. “Your question,” he said.  
            “And?”  
            Emiel hesitated for only a moment and then the words rushed out: “I’m a drunk, a disgrace, have been for half a century. That’s what defeated me in the end, just some humans with a scythe. I was too out of it to stop them. I haven’t drunk since then, and I don’t plan on ever doing so again. I think – I know that’s what’s causing some of my problem. You say you can help. Alright, I accept, though I have no way to repay you.”  
            Ciaran grinned again. “Oh, don’t talk about payments,” he waved the subject away. He opened his notebook and began to leaf through it.   
            Emiel waited, trying to think of something else to say. The confession had taken the last of his strength. He was exhausted. His eyes burned with the effort of merely seeing. His mouth was dry, his thoughts drier.   
            “What must I do?” Emiel asked at length. The silence had grown too large for him. Ciaran glanced up from his book and looked across from him. The young vampire was tense as taut bowstring and shaking slightly.   
            “Sleep,” said Ciaran.  
            “What?”  
            “Replenish your energy; let your body finish regenerating. You pushed yourself too far and you’re suffering from withdrawal. Surely, I don’t have to explain?”  
            “Of course not! But I…” Emiel searched for the right words in the flames. “You ask too much of me!  I’ve tried it, several times in fact, but the moment I slacken my guard, I see and hear things which I know aren’t there. It may sound hard to believe, but it’s a torment.”  
            Ciaran nodded and set the book on his lap. He tried to catch Emiel’s gaze, but it had been captured by the floor, the ceiling, the hearth…  
            “I’ll take care of everything tonight.” Now he had the gaze and the confusion within it.  
            “Forgive me my incredulousness, but how?”  
            Green eyes and black met in the firelight.  
            “We don’t know each other well,” Ciaran began. “Perhaps, in time, we will. For now, we each have our secrets. Let my abilities be mine.”  
            “I’ve heard that Elders can hypnotize other vampires with a word. Is that what you plan on doing?”  
            “Still stuck on that, I see. I told you, I’m not an Elder.”  
            Emiel was about to protest, but Ciaran continued: “More like the antithesis of one. You won’t understand, but if it makes you feel better to title me, then call me a humanist.”


	4. The Hand of Fate

From the personal journal of Ciaran Foiles O’Cionnaith   
Year 1052

            I am certain he is the one I saw beheaded in Dillingen fifty years ago, the one the bruxa fretted over. Everything lines up perfectly.   
            And somehow he found his way here.  
            Why?  
            Humans talk about fate and destiny as a matter of fact. I’ve never given it much thought. Yet, I am faced with a situation which would be a perfect example of fate’s hand; impossible without the guiding nudge of an unseen force. What this force is depends on what mortals one asks. Some say gods, others a cosmic demiurge.  
            But the only force I can think of tonight is the dead. There are beliefs which hold that the dead remain in this world, guiding the living, or else are reborn as a new being who, in some primal, subconscious way, remembers his old life.  
            Mortals have various ideas about what happens to them after death, but they have no place for monsters in their theologies. We are damned regardless.  
            But what if it is possible?  
            What if we’re both being guided?  
            Or perhaps the other theory; the similarities are certainly striking. If that were true, then this child is - I must keep my emotions from wavering. If my mind grows turbulent, my powers will be useless. I shall consider the dead some other time. Now, I must think of the living.  
            Emil (Emiel? I should ask him about spelling) Regis Rohellec Terzieff-Godefroy. I dug out the old records book and looked up the surnames. I believe that family would have been considered nobility in the Old World. It is hard to see that heritage in him now. He carries himself as one who has lost all confidence and dignity. Therefore, I thought it best not to mention my knowledge of what happened in Dillingen fifty years ago. It’s obvious he’s ashamed of what’s happened to him. His pride has taken a hit.  
            How can I help him? The road ahead will be long and painful and shall strain me as well. Already, I do not know if my strength will last for however long he sleeps.   
            Still, whatever force initiated it, this is a second chance. I don’t deserve it, but I will seize it nonetheless.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A short interlude while I finish summer classes.


	5. Questions and Answers

             Emiel slipped into consciousness. He didn’t remember falling asleep, but he felt that he had slept deeply and for a long time. Ciaran, the humanist, had kept his word.   
             The bed he lay in was small and layered with blankets; their warm bulk pressed against Emiel’s chest. It was comfortable, but restraining. He sat up, sore muscles protesting, and leaned against the wall. The room was not much bigger than the bed, and there were no windows or decorations, but at least it was not a cave or a cage.  
            Emiel felt well, certainly much better than the day before, but that was tenuous. He had the notion of teetering on the edge of a cliff about to crash down. It wasn’t over. Well, if he wasn’t going to be lucid for very long, now was the time to ask questions. He put on the clothes Ciaran had given him and opened the door to reveal the main room.  
            The humanist appeared to be asleep at the kitchen table, his head on his arms. His dark red hair was no longer tied back, and it had sprung into a mass of curls.  
            Emiel stepped closer to him and waited. It was strange; vampires were ever vigilant, even in sleep, but the humanist didn’t stir. He had let his guard down completely.   
            The brown cat leapt down from the hearth chair and stretched. She caught sight of Emiel, hissed, and skittered up the stairs, tail bristled.   
            This woke the humanist. He yawned and stretched, then smiled at Emiel.   
            “I’m sorry I couldn’t give you more time to sleep; my power was at its limits. How did you sleep, by the way?” Ciaran motioned toward the empty chair across from him, and Emiel sat.  
            “Peaceful, deep,” he ran a finger over the table grain. “Thank you.”  
            “It was no trouble. You slept for about two days. I only nodded off maybe thirty minutes ago. How do you feel?”  
            “Stiff and sore, but not in pain. Nothing is spinning, and I can finally smell again. But tell me: this is all temporary isn’t it? I know that.”  
            “Unfortunately, yes. Those two days of rest healed the damage you did by straining yourself after regeneration. There is still the matter of withdrawal.” Ciaran paused and regarded Emiel intensely.”You realize that what you’ve decided to do, well, it’s difficult?”  
            “Yes,” of course he knew. He had tried it before once, for Lily’s sake, and failed.  
            “I’d like to ask you more about-”  
            “Wait. _I_ have questions. You can’t expect me not to be curious.”  
            Ciaran raised his eyebrows and chuckled. “And I have some answers, but let’s eat first.”  
            At the mention of food, Emiel suddenly felt the hunger that had built up over two days spent asleep.  
            “You said you were out of food?”  
            “That I did. Fortunately, I have many kind friends.”  
            Ciaran stood and walked toward a narrow door by the hearth that Emiel now realized must be some sort of pantry. No wonder he hadn’t found anything in his cursory search of the room two nights ago.  
            Suddenly, Ciaran swayed and stumbled. He grabbed one of the hearth chairs for support and steadied himself. Emiel stared, surprised.  
            Ciaran smiled, but his voice was weak. “Fine. I’m fine. Just a little tired.”

            The humanist’s “kind friends” turned out to be generous as well. There was dried fish and venison, berries and mushrooms, onions, cheese, brown bread with a jar of fruit preserve, and several jugs of a cold herbal tea.  A mouthwatering spread.  
            Emiel ate slowly, but steadily. Ciaran unwrapped an onion and passed it from hand to hand between bites.  
            “Where am I?” Emiel asked when he had finished. “These are Ammurun lands?”  
            “You are in the Skellige Isles, Ard Skellig to be precise. There were Ammurun here for a few centuries after the tribes parted ways, but most have gone farther west since then, to Ofier.”           
            “You’re not Ammurun?”  
            “I am Tdet.”   
            “But the Tdet crossed the Blue Mountains ages ago.”  
            “They did, but this is my home,” there was a finality in the humanist’s voice that dissuaded Emiel from probing further. He noticed the cat peeking out from under the hearth chair and quickly shifted topics.  
            “Why does that cat tolerate you?”  
            “Dánu knows no other scent but mine. I raised her from a kitten. Her trust takes a while to earn, but she’ll eventually get used to you.”  
            Emiel looked at the cat in its hiding place, and she backed further under the chair. He had a few more questions, and was not sure what kind of answers he would receive.  
            “Ciaran,” using the name might have a positive effect, “what is a humanist?”  
            There was a lengthy silence before the humanist spoke cautiously. “Well, it is both a philosophy and a lifestyle. Thus, it is better shown than told. When you are well, I will show you.”  
            Emiel sighed.  
            “Can you at least tell me what the…withdrawal will be like? _Without_ being vague?” He thought of his experience in the cave, the vision of the cage. He knew that whatever was coming was probably worse.  
            “I don’t know for certain…”  
            “You don’t know?!”  
            “I have never tried human blood, but I have witnessed the withdrawal it can cause first hand. I believe it will be similar to what you experienced in the cave, the vertigo and hallucinations you mentioned. We can add to that migraines, nausea and vomiting, and possibly seizures.”  
            “Oh.”  
            Ciaran’s voice softened, “I know what you were taught: that only the weak experience fear. But I promise you that is a lie.”  
            “I’m not frightened, and I’m _not_ weak.”  
            “Of course.”  
            Emiel stared down at the table, heat rising to his cheeks, but the humanist didn’t seem to notice. Instead, he poured another cup of tea.  
            “I only intend to prompt self-reflection. Speaking of, are you willing to answer my question? If I am to help you, I’ll need to know how your addiction began.”  
            It was an easy question. Emiel had spent so much time reliving the past, analyzing each decision, each mistake, until he viewed a map of his failures. There was the beginning; it felt so long ago. He spoke quietly, slowly, and did his best to meet the humanist’s eyes.  
            “As a child, I believed that I belonged among my peers until I grew up and discovered that I did not. I struggled to learn where I had gone wrong. Did I talk too much? Too little? About the wrong topics? Was it something in the way I carried myself? My appearance?”  
            “This began to bother me. I remember everything started at a party. As usual, I hardly made an impression. I could hear my peers talking, mocking what I had already noticed about myself. Maybe they meant for me to hear. I don’t know, but it angered me more than it should have. I downed three, maybe four drinks. As the effects set in, well… I’m sure you can imagine.”  
            “When I woke up, I had only hazy memories of the night before and a blistering headache. It was so miserable that I considered never getting drunk again, but- It’s hard to explain. When I encountered my peers that night, I noticed something both strange and wonderful; I was accepted into their conversations and plans without question.”  
            “And so it went, for many years. I had the acceptance of my peers, at the expense of my sanity. I even met a girl I cared very much for,” Emiel sighed, “Lily. I managed to decrease my intake for her. But I grew restless”  
            “She told me how much she loved my cleverness, how I noticed things others didn’t, even my philosophical musings. But I had become so insecure that I did not believe it. Those traits had never won me acceptance before, so why now. So, I kept drinking, and after Lily ended things, I drank even more to dull my emotions. The rest, I told you last night – two nights ago,” Emiel trailed off. It was an agonizingly long time before Ciaran responded.  
            “I’m impressed. Very well articulated. You’ve given this a lot of thought.”  
            “Fifty years worth.”  
            “I take it our time for questions and answers is over then? Unless you have anything else you’d like to ask me?”  
            “Nothing you’d answer.”  
            The humanist smirked. “To business then,” he pointed to the room Emiel had slept in. “That room will be yours. I do ask that you not leave this house until you’ve recovered; feel free to read any of my books if you’re bored. It’s going to be a long few months.”

From the personal journal of Ciaran Foiles O’Cionnaith   
Year 1052, Month 3, Day 15

            As I thought, his motivation is not based on a realization of the sanctity of human lives, but the determination to recover a true self, a freedom, that he has lost. It is still an admirable motivation.  I wonder if, in time, I could make him understand my philosophy – Ah, I shouldn’t think too far ahead.  
            I contacted the druids and the informed them that I will only be able to make house calls for the next few months. I can’t risk a human entering this house right now, though I try not to imagine what my course of action would be if that did occur. Meljor and the others understood, though I am sure they believe I am treating a human who must be quarantined and not a creature liable to kill them.  
            Speaking of my “patient,” I cannot help but notice how our species has evolved between my generation and his. If I were to be injured or fall ill, my body would shift to its winged form so that I could protect myself while vulnerable. But his default state is human-like. To conserve energy perhaps? Or to better blend in?  
            The gross features of our human states are alike, but I have noticed the tops of his ears are rounded, not pointed. Maybe as the human population overtook the Elven, it became more advantageous to mimic humans.  
            As for his speech, he adds nasal resonances to some sounds in our language, perhaps a carryover of the human tongue he also speaks. I speak to him primarily in our language. He confessed while looking at one of my books that his ability to read and write in the human tongue lags a ways behind his speech and understanding.

Year 1052, Month 3, Day 16

            I have only just now found the time to write. His symptoms began a few hours after our conversation yesterday. He was returning a book to the shelf when he stopped, staring ahead with a blank look in his eyes. I counted sixteen seconds before he blinked a few times and shook his head. I led him to a chair.  
            “Are you alright?”  
            “Mmm.”  
            “Do you know where you are?”  
            He nodded, “Just don’t remember…What was I doing?”  
            An absence seizure, and an unusually long one at that. This is starting out more intensely than I had anticipated.

Year 1052, Month 3, Day 18

            I give him decoctions to blunt the edges of the pain, but I’m wary of giving too much, lest it lead to a dependency. Still, he cries out when the pain is too great, a piteous sound colored with fear.   
            Many times already, I’ve been tempted to use my power again, but the mental strain would be too great. I can’t afford to be exhausted.  
            To be honest, it’s not his pain that concerns me, but what he may do to relieve it. I realize that he is tormented most by fighting the temptation, the urge to flee from here, find a human (even a small animal would do – Dánu has gone into the woods for now) and end this suffering.

Year 1052, Month 3, Day 21

            I have never seen anyone vomit so much blood before. Concerning. I don’t remember that happening the first time. Generational differences, perhaps?

Year 1052, Month 4, Day 1   

            I sat on the edge of the bed. He lay on top of the blankets, shaking, sweating, and delirious from fever.  
            It’s times like these when I feel helpless. When I’ve done all I can and must wait and see. I was about to stand when I felt a hand, cold and slick with sweat, brush my arm. A voice muttered, “Don’t leave. I’m so afraid.”  
            I left the room, shutting the door behind me. Instantly, I felt the guilt and regret rise, but I swallowed it down. Had I not promised myself to keep my distance lest I fail again? Lest he cannot take this pain and drowns himself in the blood of Ard Skellig, and I have to…do what needs to be done. I could not bear it.


	6. Recovery and Realization

            The humanist had not exaggerated the symptoms of withdrawal. It was worse, much worse, than what Emiel had experienced in the cave. Even the analgesic concoction Ciaran mixed up could do little.  
            At first, Emiel tried to bear the pain with dignity, but as his condition worsened, he found there was no point. No one could be dignified while shaking so violently that any voluntary movement was impossible or when vomiting profusely.  
            He tried to keep track of the passing days, but he moved through time the way one moves through a murky bog, slowly and with effort. The days blurred together until he knew only instances of pain. In one instance, he howled as a burning sensation tore through his body, as if his blood were liquid flame. In others, he was lost in multisensory hallucinations of the cage, of nights years ago when he’d reached epic highs, and of his defeat near the well. Once, he was lucid enough to realize he had bit his own wrist in a fit of thirst.  
             Most miserable of all was the feeling that he had been emptied out and the leftover shell filled with a pernicious mixture of pain, doubt, and fear. The doubt was particularly insidious. It whispered to Emiel at those times when the withdrawal was almost unbearable.   
            _Are you sure, really sure, this is what you want? You’ve learned your lesson; no need to torture yourself.  
            Stop this. It’s ridiculous. Are you trying to prove something to yourself, to this ‘humanist’?_  
            Emiel did not realize how much effort he spent to resist these whispers, until Ciaran came into the room one day and bandaged four small, bloodied crescent moons on each of Emiel’s palms.   
            Throughout everything, the humanist was present, but Emiel noticed that Ciaran had grown strangely silent and pensive, giving aid with only a few words. He was still kind, gentle even, but distant.   
            _He knows you’re weak. He knows you’ll give up any day now._  
            But if he surrendered, Emiel sensed, there would be no third chance; it was now or never.

Year 1052, Month 4, Day 25  
            He has not given up. I stand amazed. He possesses a tenacity I had not expected. With reservations, I am allowing myself to hope.

Year 1052, Month 5, Day 2  
            There’s truth in the old axiom that things get worse before they get better. I believe he’s past the worst of it and starting to mend. He certainly has more energy. When I come in to give him food or the analgesic potion, he asks me questions, simple ones that he knows I will answer: What makes up the potion? Where are the other Skellige Isles in relation to here?  
            I sense he is genuinely curious about these things, but the conversations also distract him from temptation and fear. I have also decided to distract myself, but from my hope as well as my fear. The junk room is a good place to start; I haven’t cleaned it in centuries…

            …I remember why I haven’t cleaned the room. To call it “a mess” would be an understatement. Books in piles, old chairs and shelves that need repairing, crates with bottles of old concoctions I don’t remember making. I could use this room for something other than storage if it were clean.  
            Things went smoothly for a while until I found, buried under a pile of old fabric in the corner, a rucksack. It was stained and moth eaten, but I had a fleeting recollection of tossing it in here when it was only slightly worn.  
            I worked through the knots binding the rucksack closed and pulled out, as if through a portal, relics from another time. Loose notebook pages that crumbled to dust at my touch, wads of a fabric that doesn’t exist in this world, coins no longer in circulation, and a handful of stones.  
            Reaching into the bottom of the sack, my hand closed on a thick chain. So, I’d put it there, thrown it in a bag with other souvenirs from my old life, and forgotten. I pulled out the chain. Dangling from it, of course, was the ring. Its two red stones had lost their luster, but the intertwined snakes were still sleek.  
            I abandoned my attempt at cleaning after that and went outside. A light snowfall had begun. I brushed flakes from an old stump and sat.   
            The ring in my hand felt heavy and cold. I lost myself to memories.  
            _The ring, adorning a clenched fist, glints in the torch light. Its red ruby eyes glare at me accusatorily. Ashamed, I turn away._  
            A hand, pale and unmoving, with the ring on its first finger. There’s very little time. I take the ring.  
            The Northern woods, called Kaedwen centuries later. I twist the ring around my finger and listen for pursuers.  
            Regretfully, I cannot remember when I stowed the ring in the rucksack and why. Perhaps it reminded me too much of the past when I was trying to forge ahead.  
            From the house, I hear a whimpering. Nothing too alarming. These days, at least, he no longer screams, and he spends more time in the present. He hardly resembles the figure, wracked with pain, lost in some hallucination, who asked me to stay by his bedside.  
            Damn.  
            There’s no point in denying it. I feel guilty. When I took this ring, I swore an oath to myself. I swore to view the lives of my kind and the mortal races as equal in value, yet I’ve treated this boy as a potential mistake to be repeated. I would have taken the hand of a human who asked for comfort. It’s true that I don’t know the best way to help him, and I fear to repeat the mistakes of my past, but he deserves better.

            There was a knock at the door, and Ciaran entered.  
            Emiel was sitting up in bed, reading a book. His condition had started improving a fortnight ago and hadn’t stopped. There was color in his young face again and strength behind his voice.  
            “Are you feeling up for a short walk?” the humanist asked.  
            “I think so.”  
            “Good. Get dressed – here’s a cloak- and come with me.”

            In the months that Emiel had spent house-bound, the island had fallen under the spell of winter. Snow covered the ground and clung to tree branches, and clouds heavy with more of it, blotted out the blue of the sky. It was a beautiful vista, but harsh. Emiel winced and squinted as white light assaulted his eyes.  
            “We can do this at night so it would be more comfortable,” the humanist offered.   
            “No. my eyes will adjust.”  
            There was something else about this light. Emiel had seen plenty of winter and snow on the continent, but this brightness was different. It was harsh, rarefying. He felt naked, as if the light sought to illuminate his very core like sunrise into a dark cave. His small, fragile, yet no longer unrecognizable, core. Wrapping the cloak tighter around him, he hastened his pace until he was walking next to Ciaran and not behind. Emiel glanced back at his footprints. They were evidence to say he was alive, had walked here under his own power, and with his head clear. It was against all odds.

            After ten minutes of walking, they neared an oblong stone rising from the snow. A few meters beyond the stone, the ground sloped steeply downwards to a valley filled with white-tipped evergreens. At the far end of the valley was a harbor and several small buildings. It was a breathtaking vista. As they approached the stone, the air became denser and was filled with a low humming. The hair on Emiel’s arms stood up.  
            “You know what this is?” Ciaran asked.  
            Emiel brushed a fingertip against the stone. The humming grew louder.  
            “A marker,” he said, “for a vein of magic.”  
            Ciaran nodded, “A post-conjunction relic, like us.”  
            “Why did you bring me here?”  
            The humanist sighed and looked past the stone to the horizon.   
            “Two reasons. First: veins of magic like this have therapeutic properties. Mages and druids draw strength from them, and so can Post-Conjunction beings. Go on, try.”  
            Cautiously, Emiel pressed his palm against the stone. At this, the humming reached a fever pitch, reverberating inside his skull. His hand vibrated in resonance with the stone. But it was working. He even felt that if he sat there long enough, he would have sufficient energy to shift forms. Suddenly, darkness swept into his peripheral vision.  
            As he severed the connection, Emiel heard Ciaran say, “Careful, now. Draw too much, and you’re liable to pass out.”  
            “It really works.”  
            “Of course, but it is intense.”  
            Emiel could still feel the stone’s oscillation in his hand. He shook it and rubbed it on his cloak to dispel the sensation. “What was the second reason?”  
            The humanist hesitated. He looked nervous, unsure. Emiel brushed the snow off a smaller stone and sat down. Finally, the humanist spoke:  
            “You’ve been in that room for almost two months. I’m afraid all you’ve seen of Ard Skellig so far has been a shore cave and some woods at night, so…” he looked Emiel squarely in the eye, “I wanted to show you your home.”  
            The word seemed to echo, ringing across the valley. Emiel, too, echoed them.  
            “My…home?”  
             “I told you that you could stay until your body and mind healed. Pardon the presumption, but I don’t believe that time has come yet. So, until it does, you can consider my home to be your home.”  
            I’m relieved, Emiel realized. Of course. I can’t be considered healed when there’s all this emptiness, void inside me. And if I left here now, I would have nowhere to go, no home to return to. The humanist must know this.  
            “Thank you.”  
            Sunlight glinted off the snow crystals, strengthening the brightness that Emiel found so harsh. Ciaran fidgeted with something hanging from a chain around his neck. Emiel could not see what it was, but knew it had not been there yesterday. Suddenly, Ciaran spoke.  
            “I’m sorry,” the words were heavy with unspoken thoughts. “I underestimated you, and I drew away when you needed someone to be close. Emiel, forgive me.”  
            Ciaran’s emerald eyes were earnest. At a loss for words, Emiel nodded. His own name, unheard for fifty years, settled as a warmth in his chest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for your patience.  
> I am applying to a Masters program which takes up a lot of my time, but I am by no means giving up on this fic!  
> Expect the next chapter in December.


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